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Every year, it gets better!

By Gabe the Trash ... on Wed, 05/18/2016 - 23:13

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Pikeminnow, Northern

Size:

4 lbs 12 oz, 23 inches

Every year, I seem to have one day, one day that gives me a large fish. For the past 3 years, they have been bigger and bigger. Behold, a so-close-to-5-pound pikeminnow! Caught on a large gold and maroon Kastmaster.

Doesn't suprise me, more gamefish supremacy incentives for anglers. Are they actually harming the Salmonid populations or do the local fishery departments just want more and bigger Steelhead and Salmon? Don't get me wrong, I love the Salmonids, they're probably my favorite group of fish, it just seems weird that if the Pikeminnows and Steelhead are both native and have lived together for thousands of years that the Minnow population would need any human management.

The pikeminnow populations are thriving in the slower water created by dams, while the steelhead populations did not deal with it as well, upsetting the balance of species (durr). It's therefore obviously the responsibility of the DFW to right its wrongs by killing pikeminnows.

Oh, I wasn't aware of the background behind it. That makes more sense. I must be mixing Northern Pikeminnows with another species because I thought they needed fast-flowing gravel-bottomed water to thrive.